Educational psychology service

The educational psychology service uses psychology to improve wellbeing, support life-long learning and empower children and young people to achieve their potential.

What is an educational psychologist?

Every school has an educational psychologist who visits on a regular basis and works together with others to help children and young people to achieve their full potential. We support children and young people from the age of 0-24 where there are potential barriers to learning and to promote their wider wellbeing.

How we work

Every school in Aberdeen City has an allocated educational psychologist who visits the school on a regular basis. To find out the name of the current educational psychologist for a school, please contact us.

We work within Aberdeen City Council's staged procedure. You can download a copy of the procedure below:

Educational psychologists negotiate work with individual schools and work across the following three levels:

Child and family

School

Local Authority

Within each level we have 5 core functions:

Consultation

Assessment

Intervention

Research

Training

We also have statutory functions as outlined in the Education (Scotland) Act 1980. These include the giving of advice to parents, schools and local authorities regarding children with additional support needs.

Getting It Right For Every Child (GIRFEC)

GIRFEC is the national approach in Scotland to improving outcomes and supporting the wellbeing of our children and young people, by offering the right help, at the right time, from the right people. It supports children and young people and their parents and carers to work in partnership with the services that can help them.

You can download some documents about GIRFEC in Aberdeen City below:

For more information, see the following links on the Scottish Government website: